Ice cream is typically dispensed at the point of sale in pre-packed form by scoops out of large containers in a refrigerator, or in a flow from a freezing, mixing and dispensing machine.
Dispensing ice cream by scoop from a container has the advantage of inexpensive production and transport, but dispensing the ice cream is slow, especially when the proper hygienic precautions are taken. Scoop-dispensed ice cream also provides the facility for providing a range of ice cream including those containing fruit, nuts and other solids. However, freezers for maintaining the containers of ice cream can be large and bulky, and large commercial ice cream containers are susceptible to contamination.
Machines for dispensing so called “soft’ or “soft-serve” ice cream are known, wherein liquid ingredients are loaded into a machine that mixes, freezes and dispenses the ice cream into cones or other containers. Such machines have previously had high power requirements and are expensive to manufacture. Additionally, different mixing and dispensing equipment is required for each flavor, such that it is usual for such machines to have a capacity for only one, two or, perhaps, three flavors. Moreover, these machines are often difficult to maintain, and, due to the nature of the product which must be used, the quality of the ice cream dispensed therefrom does not compare favorably with the possible quality of products dispensed by scoop.
Hygiene requirements for dispensing food products are becoming stricter. Moreover, convenience and variety of product are of greater importance. Pre-packed ice cream is relatively expensive to produce and distribute but has the advantage that a wide range of flavors and types of ice cream can be sold at a single outlet, the only requirement being a refrigerator to keep the product frozen. Thus, dispensing soft serve product from prefilled containers permits service of a large variety of flavors utilizing simple, inexpensive equipment with minimum level of labor and with conformity to the highest modern hygienic standards.
However, an important aspect of using prefilled containers is a filling process. Design of the container must to provide a practical way for filling from small dispensers as well as use in high output production lines.
Various types of deformable containers are already known for single serving, pre-packaged ice cream, but problems exist with these containers.
For example, devices that serve the above purposes are known and already used by UNILEVER® (e.g., U.S. Pat. No. 7,017,783 to Jeffrey Hunter et al., which is hereby incorporated by reference in its entirety) and ONE SHOT® (e.g., U.S. Pat. No. 5,918,767 to Shane Robert McGill, which is hereby incorporated by reference in its entirety). By providing dispensing apparatus and a single serving dispensing containers, these disclosures help alleviate hygienic concerns. However, these containers are not environmentally friendly, as they require large spaces for transportation and waste management.
Specifically, it is often the case that the single serving dispensing containers must be shipped over considerable distances to distributors who fill with the product and then ship the product-filled containers to retail locations. During the initial shipment to distributors, the empty containers fill a large a volume that is mostly air. The same issue happens when the prefilled container is disposed of (after dispensing of the product), transported to a waste management facility and placed in a landfill.
In addition, these containers are made of rigid structures with relatively thick plastic walls that become a great environmental concern, because plastic materials are, for the most part, not biodegradable. Moreover, these containers are products of a molding process that necessarily produces containers with walls having significantly greater thickness than desired (e.g., above 0.7 mm) and, therefore, require greater power consumption to deform the container when dispensing the product. By contrast, the thermoforming process allows fabrication of collapsible containers with equal thicknesses from 0.1 mm and up.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,715,648, issued Apr. 6, 2004 to Hui-Taek Kim, which is incorporated by reference herein in its entirety, discloses an ice cream dispenser which is directed to effectively discharging an ice cream from the interior of a dispensing container without any transformation and damage of the dispensing container. However, Kim's empty container is cumbersome to transport due to its lack of collapsibility and stack-ability, and the empty container also leaves behind a large and bulky waste product that causes the environmental concerns described above.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,913,342, issued Jun. 22, 1999 to Shane Robert McGill, which is incorporated by reference herein in its entirety, discloses deformable containers which are of generally cylindrical in shape having end walls at opposite ends, one end wall including an opening and the other end wall configured to be engaged for moving that end wall relative to the other, during which movement the side walls are deformed. The side walls may have a concertina-like formation to enable deformation to take place, so as to reduce the length and volume of the container and discharge the contents of the container. With the concertina-like formation the side wall may comprise a plurality of pleats, which close up and open out during deformation of the container. However, McGill's cylindrical shape makes these deformable containers difficult to store and transport due to their lack of stack-ability once deformed. In addition, the containers involve overly complicated methods of collapsing that needlessly raises manufacturing and material costs. Similar problems exist with U.S. Pat. No. 5,215,222, issued Jun. 1, 1993 to Shane Robert McGill, which is incorporated by reference herein in its entirety.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,232,027, issued on Aug. 3, 1993 to Toshinori Tanaka et al., which is incorporated by reference herein in its entirety, depicts an extrudable package having a conical shape that is formed of thin and relatively hard plastic, which includes a main body wall formed with a number steps, an opening closed by a lid having a discharge opening and an auxiliary lid having pull tab. When the extrudable package is pressed, the main body deforms so as to become flat, and the soft ice cream food is extruded through the discharge opening and dispensed into a food container. However, U.S. Pat. No. 5,232,027 provides no explanation as to how the extrudable container is collapsible, and it is conceivable that it would be difficult, if not impossible, to collapse Tanaka's container due to its relatively hard material and to the strict 90 degree step-wise shape of the main body wall. Additionally, while Tanaka explains that the extrudable container may be flattened, Tanaka fails to contemplate and overcome any spring-back action that may prevent the container, once deformed, from maintaining its flattened shape.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,439,128, issued Aug. 8, 1995 to Avraham Fishman, which is incorporated by reference herein in its entirety, discloses a three-dimensional structure of concentric rings forming a container of plastic material, wherein a plurality of concentric ring-shaped wall elements adjoin each other to form a generally frusto-conically shaped wall of the container. Adjacently adjoining wall elements are inclined with respect to each other, and the wall elements are connected to each other with a ring-shaped area of reduced wall thickness, forming a film hinge. The wall elements are inclined so that they can be turned down over adjoining elements to collapse the container. However, the intricate design and alternating wall thicknesses of Fishman's container most likely raises production costs. Also, and similar to U.S. Pat. No. 5,232,027 discussed above, Fishman fails to contemplate and overcome any spring-back action that may prevent the container, once deformed, from maintaining its flattened shape.
None of the above-recited patents solve the current problems associated with one-time-use dispensing containers, namely bulky waste, inconvenience, expensive and cumbersome transportation, high material costs, and the likelihood that the disposable container may fail to maintain a flattened shape after dispensing. Stackability is a desirable structural feature of a deformable container, both prior to being filled and after being emptied, because it decreases the volume needed to transport the container. Additionally, maintaining a flattened shape after deformation is a desirable structural characteristic of a deformable container because it decreases the volume needed to store and transport the container, in addition to reducing the volume of waste product produced.